


See My Heart (I decorate it like a grave)

by serpentqueenz



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Parents, Angst, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Drug Use, F/M, Family Bonding, Family Feels, Fluff and Smut, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Parenthood, and single parenting probz, but I promise happy ending shit too I swear, like there's sad shit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-29
Updated: 2019-03-29
Packaged: 2019-12-26 05:47:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18277022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serpentqueenz/pseuds/serpentqueenz
Summary: Jughead nearly had it all. Veronica was the love that he would bleed for, just when he thought he couldn’t love anything else, his son stole his whole heart. New York City was so warm and inviting when they abandoned everything at eighteen years old with no turning back.At some point, it all went wrong. He could still hear the shutting of the door to their apartment when Veronica left and his son’s voice on the other end of the phone as he had to say goodnight from different homes.Being back in Riverdale reminds him that it holds no love for outcasts and his fingers are full of glass and splinters as he tries to piece his family back together again.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aubrey my muse.](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Aubrey+my+muse.).



> This is a beast that has been waiting to be fed for a long time. I've been shoving it to the back of my mind, but it's been shoved behind for too long and now its busted it's way through to the front so I thought I would give it a shot. It's a parenting/family/angst fic. Sad!Jughead and Headstrong!Veronica. Please, if you could be so kind to let me know if I should continue, that would be more than amazing.  
> *please note there will be references to drug use in this fic.

_**Prologue** _

* * *

I had never considered that my life would be as overflowing with regret as it is right now. It feels as though Riverdale holds no love for those who aren’t from families who built this town. No love for those without the names that scream _‘money’_ from the darkest depths of Sweetwater River. No love for the people who march slightly to the left of what the Founding Fathers created. No love for the the people who don’t have white picket fences, no pastel coloured clothing, sweet pink lips, strength enough to play Varsity football, grades that would get you into any college you wanted. No love for those who were born and bred right here in the heart of Riverdale.

Riverdale’s sons and daughters.

I always thought I was a little more than the cliche that is Riverdale. I didn’t have that deep rooted beckoning call to come home. Home was never anything that Riverdale gave me. All Riverdale ever gave me was a push and shove to keep my head under its water, it gave me a childhood laced with the stench of dad’s cheap bourbon and mom’s fake smiles. It reminded me every single day of my life that I was different.

It shouldn’t have called me home in the way it had.

It stand in the room that is so authentically Blossom, from the cedar walls to the very old, very expensive persian rug. It smells sickly sweet throughout the home that I could never have imagined myself standing in. The reality of the moment I was also standing in proved to me that I am not who I believed myself to be.

I don’t have so many complex layers.

I am a man broken.

Even amongst the tears that fall from her eyes and the ridged, hurtful, jagged words she spits at me, I can’t help but feel blessed. I postpone any thoughts of hellish comebacks and I let her words hit me, one by one, full forced. My entire light, my entire world was standing here in my presence and I would listen to every single word she throws, every _‘I hate you’_ and _‘this hurts me, Jughead’_ if it means she’s here with me.

Her hair that is usually so perfectly placed flies as she tells me things that are supposed to hurt me. The exact tone of raven takes me back ten years. Ten years of her in my zone, ten perfect years. Her dark eyes seem to darken more when she hates me. It’s something that I’ve noticed over the same lot of ten years. New York has changed her. She could change one million times over and I would love her even more and more each time.

Somehow the conversation shifts, at some point, the fact that it’s my birthday is brought up again and with one brush of her hair out of her eyes with my fingers, I try to tell her in as many ways as I can that I love her with my everything. My entire being. New York had separated us for so long, now all that separates us in the distance between the Pembrooke and Thistlehouse. Twelve months was what separated us before, New York was a long way away when she was there with our son and I was crying in sheets in Riverdale that still smelled like her. Burnt cinnamon.

Even when she tells me all of my shortcomings, it’s so pretty and poetic. “But god, I still love you, Veronica,” I tell her.

At some point, the words stop overflowing over the banks like the middle of winter. Veronica’s spitfire ceases and it’s like we’re sixteen all over again, stealing kisses. When she falls silent, it’s like we’re in the unreal moment when our newborn son would fall asleep at two in the morning and we had been up all night, begging for his peace. All we had was each other in an unrealistic

moment of calm. We’re eighteen again, running away, searching for something that we knew only we could give each other.

The reality is that we’re standing in the room that Cheryl and Toni gave to me because I can’t afford shit and I have nowhere to go. In true Jughead Jones fashion, I exhausted my time on the couch of my best friend. Archie and Betty would have never said it, but laying amidst their domestic bliss probably tainted it at some point. I stand in front of the woman that I love with my whole heart, the heart that has so many invisible cracks and dents, it only functions when I’m in her zone, with my son. Two parts of my whole heart. I live for every second weekend and dinners every second day with the little six year old boy who has missing teeth and jet black hair. My life has come crashing down. It’s a mundane excuse, but it’s my birthday and I use it as protection again.

The more she hurts me with her words, the more she knows I’m hers. Eventually teeth are crashing with mine, clicking against each other. Her angry hands are on my skin, moving my jeans down my legs.

There’s a sense of relief when she takes her next breath, right there in my ear with my tongue on her neck. I follow her lead when she’s on her knees with soft lips around me. Sometimes I wish it never ends up like this. Most of the time I know my heart couldn’t survive if we didn’t end up like this.

Again, we end up a mess on the bed where the sheets are more expensive than everything I own. Veronica’s body is drawn to mine, a disgusting mess of truth and desperation. That’s all we ever are. When I slide my fingers into her, she comes with my name in her mouth. And her love all on my skin.

Anger fuels everything. She’s not soft, graceful touches on me anymore. Her long, dark hair that’s grown past her shoulders is wrapped up in my fist with her ass slapping against my damp skin. I slap her ass a little harder as it slams into my hips.

But the way she calls out, “ _Jughead_ ,” when she comes on me is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard.

My birthday’s have always hurt, why change it now?

****  
  



	2. Chapter One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I know!” I moan back, running a nervous hand through my hair. “But she’s coming over to drop son’s stuff off and then I hope she stays long enough for me to able to plead my case. I want her home…” I take a breath, trying to steady myself without the waterworks that like to bust through every now and then when I talk about it too much. “I just want her to give me another chance.”   
> or;  
> A chapter where Jughead gets bad news.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As mentioned before, I'm not sure if I should continue this but if you feel the need to validate me, please do so. And I will love you as madly as Jughead loves Veronica.

**_ Chapter One _ **

* * *

It was an unnatural setting in what was supposed to be the single most natural thing in the world; the surroundings of our own furniture around a blow up pool that reminded me of summers in Riverdale in Fred’s backyard. Childbirth doesn’t seem real when it’s in a pool in the middle of an apartment. A somewhat comical backdrop to the entering of my own flesh and blood into the world that I was so notoriously pessimistic toward. My defeatist attitude diminished the moment my own flesh and blood arrived.  

Listening to the woman that Veronica had hand chosen to help bring our baby into the world say; “Congratulations, it’s a healthy baby boy!” was something I would never forget. There was something about the way that raven hair clung to our son’s forehead smeared with the very essence that Veronica carried him in that made everything seem a little animalistic. But my love that I truly and utterly believed had no bounds, no limits, no more of my own inner essence left that he could give seemed to bust down walls, shatter concrete and expand in a way that I would never be able to explain.

Veronica; my everything, my entire world in the form of one woman who spat fire and dug nails into every single one of my veins laid in a mess of off-white sheets that she probably hated more than anything in the world with her own blood surrounding her. Her equally as dark raven hair clung to her own forehead and her deep coloured lips that she had forced me to reapply with lipstick even in the midst of labour. She chewed through her lips and scratched her strength into my palms. 

I had never felt prouder. 

I didn’t believe I could have loved anything more than Veronica Lodge. But knowing that our love created him taught me a lot of things. Dylan was made out of our love for each other, and that had to count for something, right?

For every heartache we had endured, for every heart we had broken, for every secret kiss and sixteen year old whispers and stolen moments away to running away from everything we had ever known. 

It had been worth it for the son who arrived in the middle of the night in the middle of winter in the home we had runaway to. 

If I concentrate hard enough, I still feel the cold that reminds me of the concrete jungle of New York and I can still hear the soft murmuring of Veronica on our son’s cheek as he fed from her. The bitter, fucked up memories of better times. 

Two years apart is a long time when you still feel like the person who left you is your entire world. It’s a disgusting cliche and it sounds stupid to say it. Eleven months I have been in Riverdale and every moment I stay here, it reminds me why I left. But NYC kept Veronica and Dylan and it shafted me, so I had no choice but to come home. 

_Home_. 

My home living with Cheryl and Toni. It’s barely a home but they insist I make it one, so I try. 

The moment that Veronica called me to tell me she and Dylan were coming home had me feeling too many emotions for a two minute phone call. Travelling to New York every weekend were the best moments of my existence. It gave me a false sense of comfort sitting in the apartment I used to share with my family and having Veronica open a little more up to me. But Sunday’s would roll around and the realisation that I would have to travel back to Riverdale where I now live would disjoint us a little more. 

Selfishly, I felt some relief when I knew they were moving back to Riverdale. To be away from my son was a level of pain I didn’t know anyone could reach. The false sense of unhappiness mom used to give me over the phone when she was in Toledo was so loud, it was deafening when I experienced the feeling first hand. Mom never had the feeling of impending doom wash over her when she was away from me. The feeling of her heart ripping its way out of her ribcage or the sickness in the pit of her stomach. Everyday away from Dylan seemed to strip me bit by bit until there was almost nothing left. To become a parent is a soul cleansing experience that you think will never be taken away from you. 

To be a parent away from your child is nothing short of pure torture. 

Dylan is every single part of his mother with flecks of myself in him. Six years old with attitude that will never falter. Guts to stand up to anyone. Confidence that can only be found in a Lodge. All he got from me was sharp jabs at people and my skin tone. 

Most days, I countdown the minutes until he’s with me again. The countdown makes everything seem so real. 

It makes me realise that everything I’m living now is not how I pictured it when he was just a baby in my arms.

 

* * *

 

Cheryl Blossom watches my every move from the kitchen counter. For a woman with a lot of money, she doesn’t nearly spend enough money on coffee that would suit her style of living. 

Cheryl is dressed in all red and lace, Toni matches her in all purple and satin. Both outfits clash with my three day old flannel and boxer shorts with burgers on them that state I’m the world’s best dad. The irony. 

Both women look at me from above newspapers. Cheryl doesn’t concern herself with the trivial goings on in Riverdale but what she does do is support her wife fiercely, Toni and I have both been working for Betty for the last year and to say Toni’s work is the highlight of the newspaper and the local magazine is an understatement and at least brings colour and light into the articles that I write that tend to be a little dark and hazy. 

Toni wastes no time in asking; “So what’s the plan for tonight?” 

Unfashionably, Cheryl doesn’t say anything. Her silence is unsettling but she too knows that tonight isn’t like any other night. Since Veronica and Dylan had been back in Riverdale, all of two months, her drop offs of Dylan to me every second weekend had ended up in a regretful mess. But tonight, it was different. It was going to be different.

I promised myself it was going to be different. 

“I’ll try not to barf,” I say, straight faced and heart racing. “I’ll try not to panic. Sound like a good plan?”

Toni groans and rolls her eyes. Cheryl says; “Don’t you dare vomit on my carpet,” then goes back to reading the paper. 

Toni’s more sympathetic. “You’ll be fine!”

I snigger and go back to sipping my coffee while pulling out a cigarette from the shared packet on the counter and putting it behind my ear. The ritual of smoking a cigarette in the morning is one of the only thing keeping me grounded. “I won’t be fine and you know it.” 

“If it doesn’t go to plan, Sad Johnny Depp, then can you please let us know so we can come home?” Cheryl says slowly. “I don’t know how long this great reunion is supposed to take, but there’s only so long I can spend sitting at a booth at Pop’s or seeing a movie.” 

“C,” Toni groans, nudging her with her elbow. “This is a big deal.”

I lean on the counter watching the two of them try to fight for my honour. It is a big deal. The biggest. Unfortunately, this is probably one of the biggest things I will have to endure in my life and not even the whole packet of menthols feels like it’s going to settle me. 

I was going to ask Veronica to come back to me. 

The unease that has settled itself in the pit of my stomach reminds me that I haven’t prepared myself for anything but a yes from Veronica. I also haven’t thought past her saying yes either. What we would do, where we’d go. 

But to have my love and my son in my arms again was something I had been praying for for the last two years. 

“You two were always made for eachother, even since school… but who could resist the six pack on Andrews? Not even I could,” Cheryl says with an out of place smile.

Toni laughs and sips her tea. “And I didn’t really expect you, the saddest kid in Riverdale, to end up with Betty, so when I met her…”

They both chuckle at my expense. I join along, ten years is allows you to laugh at anything. “Yeah, yeah,” I coax, “Laugh at the incestuous love affairs and remind yourselves, especially you, TT,” I say with a wink in her direction, “That you too, had a piece of this.” I gesture up and down my body.

Toni shugs and tilts her head, “I mean, I get what you’re saying, but I didn’t truly get a piece of anything…” 

I grin and hold back a laugh, glad for the distraction. “I’ll be first to admit that maybe sixteen year old Jughead couldn’t handle a piece of anything.” 

“But he could handle Veronica and Betty at the same time…” Cheryl trials off, looking down to avoid my gaze.

I inhale sharply and widen my eyes; “What is this? Roast Jughead day?”

“It was a long time coming anyways, wasn’t Jones?” Cheryl states. “You and Veronica were in love all along and then suddenly, you two had skipped town and all of a sudden you were getting married and you sent photos of your kid…”

“Nice way to condense my entire life into one sentence…”

Toni grins at me. “You got to fight for your right to love her!”

“Was that a Beastie Boys reference?” I ask, chuckle escaping me. 

“Stop changing the subject,” Toni growls. “I just want you to be happy and I know Veronica wants to be happy too,” she adds seriously.

“I find it romantic,” Cheryl announces across the kitchen, snatching my attention again. “Two lovers, reunited again in the town where it all started…” 

Toni gives me a smile before falling back into trance by Cheryl. “You’ll be fine, Jughead,” she tries to remind me. “You two have endured so much, maybe she’ll give you guys another shot.”

My hurried steps outside to light my cigarette aren’t fast enough. I light up. Inhale. 

My panic dulls for a moment. 

I watch Toni get up to put her coffee mug in the sink before heading out the backdoor to come outside and patting me on the back, “If it goes terribly, Jug, I’ll be here to wipe the tears away.”

It’s oddly comforting. We smoke our cigarettes in silence.

 

* * *

Jet black hair follows in a mess as he runs in between chairs and tables. I don’t know if he’s stopped to breathe at all, but the plus side is that he’ll be sleepy after all the running and might head off to bed early. I don’t trust him when he tells me he’s not tired and he wants to watch TV in Toni and Cheryl’s room because I don’t trust that they’re not watching reality TV and the fact that my son knows what Love Island is disturbs me.

He’s wearing dirty denim and no shoes for which he begged me to allow knowing full well that Veronica Lodge doesn’t allow such things. But when we’ve driven out to the Whyte Wyrm to pick up Uncle Sweet Pea, there’s no real standards. 

The Whyte Wyrm smells like bleach and beer. It smells like nights spent here when I was a kid, completely different reasons though. In a bid to make myself feel like a better parent than FP, I am reminded that right now, I’m here picking up a friend from his workplace.

My dad used to bring me here so he could get drunk. 

Sweet Pea stands next to his girl friend. Mika’s long hair almost covers her eyes but she still gives me a toothy grin and smiles at me, waving with both arms. “Hey kid!” she says excitedly to me, happiness and cheer always seems a little out of place in this hell hole. “You ready for tonight?”

I groan as I make it up to the bar, Sweet Pea’s blushed cheeks tells me he’s been a little too friendly with the information and he’s probably telling the whole of Southside about tonight. “Babe…” he warns a little too late. 

I throw my hand in the air. “Don’t, it’s all good, you’ll both be invited to my funeral anyway…” I grumble. 

“Because you’re going to die?” Sweet Pea asks.

Mika looks at her boyfriend with disbelief. “Don’t be stupid.” 

“No, he’s right,” I add, “I’m going to die.” 

This time, a towel hits my head. “Yeah, because I’m going to kill you if you keep being stupid,” Mika snaps. 

We watch Dylan still weaving in and out of the chairs. “Does he ever stop?” Sweet Pea asks. 

“Nope. He doesn’t.”

They both nod at me. 

“So…” the conversation sparks again. “What’s the plan tonight?”

The plan had not changed much since the last time I had been asked. My stomach still sits awkwardly in my frame, my heart still beats a little too hard for comfort. “I cook dinner, I ask her to stay with me the night and then forever.”

Mika grimaces. “Please tell me there’s more to this plan.” 

I watch Sweet Pea and Mika watch me. Both of their arms crossed, leaning against their side of the bar. “Am I being interrogated?” 

“Be serious, Jug. This is Veronica Lodge we’re talking about.”

“I know!” I moan back, running a nervous hand through my hair. “But she’s coming over to drop son’s stuff off and then I hope she stays long enough for me to able to plead my case. I want her home…” I take a breath, trying to steady myself without the waterworks that like to bust through every now and then when I talk about it too much. “I just want her to give me another chance.” 

They both look sorry for me. Everyone does. I have to look at the sorry looks that Toni and Cheryl give me every single morning when I wake up alone and when I get to work, Betty looks at me like I’m a ghost of who I used to be. I don’t blame them, the truth hurts because I feel sorry for myself too. 

Sweet Pea gives my plan his nod of approval but Mika says; “Harden up, Jug. You can do it.” 

A pile of chairs comes crashing down with my kid standing behind them. He smiles mischievously.

“Get in the car, Dyl, before I make you pick those all up yourself!” Sweet Pea  yells from across the bar. 

“I’m not tall enough,” the little voice adds.

 

* * *

Dylan was heartbroken when his Aunts left Thistlehouse but they promised him a chocolate shake once they got home and that seemed to make everything okay.

He helps with dinner, chunks of onion are huge and varying but he chucks them in the pot anyways. “Do you think these will taste nice?” he asks.

His concentration is solely on the chopping of onion, his eyebrows knit and he bites his lower lip as he tries his hardest. I kiss him on the top of his head and he smiles in return, toothy and smiley. “Not on their own, but they’ll taste okay with the spaghetti and meat.”

His eyes turn beady when he says; “I dare you to eat it like this.” 

I give him the same look back. “What do I get in return, huh son?” 

He ignores the challenge, chucking a piece into his mouth that he crunches and spits out at once. “That was gross!” 

“I didn’t tell you to do it!” 

“Dad,” he warns, rubbing his tongue on the palm of his hand. “I don’t want you to try that, it’s gross!”

The look of disgust makes me laugh and ruffle his hair. “You need a haircut, son.” 

“Mom says I can get one when I want one, but my hair looks like your hair.” 

“Mom’s not wrong, but it’s a mess!” 

When he frowns, it’s his mom all over. “Dad?” he asks and I know a question is coming.

“Yes.” 

“Why do you live with Aunt Cheryl and Aunt Toni?” 

I go back to stirring my pot of pasta, questions like these seem like too much from a six year old and too much for this twenty six year old to answer. I try not to burden little brains with adult problems but I’ve figured, you don’t want to lie too much to them either. “Because I don’t have anywhere else to live.”

“You could live with me and mom?”

I chuckle to myself. He was too intuitive. “That’s the plan, son.” 

Now, he starts eating plain slices of bread with nothing on them. “Should I go and answer the door?”

I didn’t hear the bell ring, but I do again and my heart hitches again. “Yeah, it’s probably mom…” I at least hope it is.

He rushes off the stool and sprints to the front door. I hear Veronica’s excited cheer as our son most likely throws himself into his mom’s arms. “Have you had a good afternoon, baby?” she asks. “Are you here all by yourself?! You’ve got the run of Thistlehouse, huh?!” 

His laughs are pure. “NO! Dad’s here with me!”

Dylan leads Veronica back into the kitchen and she dumps his bag into the corner. “Smells good in here,” she says with a smile that instantly eases me. 

Veronica’s barely changed in all the time that I’ve known her. The only change after all these years is that she’s let her hair grow long past her shoulders. In this moment, our son tries to feed her dry bread and she sits at the kitchen counter like she belongs here. A picture of domestic bliss. 

I hate reading too much into things, I hate that I step over lines and my mind runs too fast, to quickly. In this one moment my heart already feels like it’s clicking into place and when I watch the two parts of my heart sit in the kitchen with me, I remember exactly why I’m here and why I hurt so much when they’re away. 

“What did you guys do today?” she asks, looking between Dylan and I. 

I just shrug as I put food onto plates. “Hung out here, went to take Sweet Pea to his car - Fangs had it. We were supposed to go and see Arch and Betty but they were still out so we came home and started dinner.” 

Dylan screws up his face. “Don’t try the onion, it tastes like crap!” 

Both Veronica and I hold back a laugh. “Don’t say that, son,” she warns, “It’s a bad word.” 

“Okay…” he says. “But it’s true!” 

I place the food in front of them and they both start eating. “I want to talk to you after we put him to bed if that’s okay?” I ask. 

The one breath I took waiting for her to reply seems to take forever but she shrugs. “Sure…” she replies, having no idea exactly how much my entire life hinges on this one conversation. “Where’s Cheryl and T?”

“Date night.”

“Romantic,” she laughs. “Probably needs a night away from your ass,” she winks.

“Probably giving me the opportunity to have a night with your ass,” I mumble. 

She chokes on her glass of water. “Jug!” she hisses. 

She doesn’t push it though. Part of the pain was in that exact sentence.]

There were so many nights still where I’m so far in her, she’s begging me not to leave. 

But she leaves me in the morning, and it always hurts. 

“What did you do today, then?” I ask her. The small talk is torturing, but necessary to continue at least some form of normality. 

She feels it too. Her incredulous look tells me she thinks I may be going mad. “Work?” 

“Work,” I repeat. “Right.” 

She reaches across the bench and puts her hand on mine. “We need to talk.” 

In those four words, the stars seem to align. 

* * *

Even in the flickering light from the fire and the echoes of our son’s argument before bed, she brings me a sense of ease.

She touches the items in my room that don’t belong to me, she traces the snake on the back of my Serpents jacket that hangs on the rack. “He loves staying here with you,” she says, touching the jacket next to mine that belongs to our son.

The room is too big. It’s not a bedroom. It’s the same size as the trailer I grew up in. It reminds me of when I used to sneak into the Pembrooke when we were sixteen, though the Pembrooke isn’t as big, it was still foreign to me. How people lived in spaces so well thought out, big and organised.

She smiles at a photo I still have of us at seventeen years old on my bike. She smiles at a photo of Dylan and I when he was only two. 

I let her move around the room a little longer before saying; “V, I need to talk to you about something too.” 

She nods and turns on her heels and I move towards her. That gravitational pull I’ve never been able to give up calls me to her. I place fingers on either side of her hips, it’s like the dips in her hips were made for my hands because once they sit upon her, I never want to let go.

]She doesn’t move, she doesn’t budge. Sometimes the fact that we’re separated is so apparent in the way she moves away from me but I almost detect a sigh of relief when I’m close to her. Her sigh washes over me and I know this is the right thing to do.

For a man whose words are my entire life, she brings me to my knees and I lose all train of thought, or string of words to use. “I love you,” is all I manage.

Veronica’s chest rises and falls so close to my own. She seems small when I’m so close to her. It takes my everything not to snatch her up in my arms, never let her go. “I love you too, Jug.” 

Her words are so open. I don’t know how to read them. “You love me? Or you’re in love with me?”

“Is there a difference?” she challenges.

“There is if you feel there’s a difference.” 

She doesn’t answer. She never does. 

I look down to meet her eyes that always seem to just miss me. “I need to talk to you about…” I almost choke on the words I had practiced. “I need to talk about us.” 

She laughs lightly and her smile brightens the dim room. “This isn’t one of your movies, Jughead.” 

“Stop,” I groan against her hair, placing a kiss. “I’m trying to make this as least cringey as I can.” 

“You’re not doing so well.” 

“Because you bring out the theatrics in me.” 

She laughs again. 

“I want to talk about where we go from here.”

This time, she moves my hands and sits on the edge of my bed. She closes her eyes to yawn then opens to look at me again, I stand in front of her with my legs touching hers as she sits. “I thought we were doing okay with the parenting?” she asks. “Dyl seems to like it here in Riverdale and he likes coming to stay here…”

She wasn’t getting it. “I know, I mean us, Princess. You and I,” I blurt it out; “I want us to get back together.” 

Veronica’s face freezes. Her eyes widened, eyebrow raised, mouth slightly ajar. She’s on pause. “Jug…”

I shake my head. “V, I regret everything. I came back to Riverdale which was the dumbest thing I had ever done - being away from you two. And now that you two are back, I want to give us a fresh start. I can barely breathe without you two. I want us to be a family again.” 

The toxicity of knowing that her and I both came from families that were so broken and poisonous plays with my mind constantly. We came from everything we promised we’d never give our son. And as hard as we try, as good as we’re doing, the reality of our own form of broken home hurts me. We never tried enough. Maybe we were too young. But I love her so much, I can hardly breathe. And every day without her in my arms kills me a little more. 

Her silence is deafening. She plays with loose threading on my blanket. “I want us to be a family too…” 

I fall to my knees in front of her, a part of it is my soul breaking, another part is trying to prove my point. “Then come back, baby,” I tell her, burying my head in her lap.

Her nails scratch on my head and her soft touch just makes me miss her even more. “I don’t know, Jug.”

“Why?!” I beg, praying for answers with my eyes closed on her skin. “I want to come home to you, V.” 

“I’m engaged to Reggie.” 

Four worlds kill me on the spot. Four words end everything. My heart hurts and I’m still laying in the lap of the woman that I love. 

Four words get me off the floor, I stand in front of her and her eyes brim with tears, but they don’t spill. Even when she’s killed me, she’s the most perfect person on this earth.

Four words remind me that my son is sleeping in the room next to me and I feel an awkward pang in my chest.

I sit on the bed next to her, she places her hand on my thigh and gives me a sympathetic smile that makes me feel weak. “You love him?”

“I don’t know. Yes… you know it’s not that simple, Jug.”

I don’t want to believe it, but it’s been said and I love her. I love her still. But I don’t know what to do. 

My whole entire body shuts down. My brain barely functions. “But Veronica,” I beg. “I love you.”

She pushes my chest gently with the palm of her hand, forcing me to lie down. Knowing I need to relax. 

She lays her head on my chest, probably listening to my heart. Her comfort. Her way of falling asleep. 

She can probably hear it cracking. Hear my whole heart singing it’s toxic song. 

Her comfort has always been falling asleep to the sound of my whole heart. But I don’t think I’ll ever sleep again. 

All I ever wanted was to have the perfect life. The one that I never had and dreamt about as a kid. The one where my love was in my arms and my son was with me all the time. 

I guess I have that right now in a fucked up, poisonous way. My love was in my arms and my son was with me now. But tomorrow I’d wake up with Reggie’s girl in my arms and my son saying goodbye for another day. 

“Veronica, I love you.”

She sighs against me. “And I’ve always loved you.”

But, quite simply, it wasn’t fucking enough.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do have one more chapter up my sleeve already prepared if you're down? Or I can work on another 15... up to you guys <3

**Author's Note:**

> If I should continue, let me know. I have a long journey for these two in my mind but I'm not sure if I'm doing them any justice.


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